Lula, a restaurant with its own distillery, now open on St. Charles Avenue

Lula, which opened Monday (Feb. 13) on St. Charles Avenue, is a restaurant with an onsite distillery. It's not one-of-a-kind, but that combo is rare. When the owners, Jess Bourgeois, his wife Erin and Bear Caffrey, started working on Lula, they knew of only two other restaurants with distillers: one in Utah and one in Idaho. A third recently opened in Washington, D.C.

Here are the essential facts on Lula:

1. Jess created the menu. "I tried to make a menu that was bright and flavorful," he said. Jess worked at Commander's Palace and then moved to Birmingham, Ala., to open Cocina Superior, a restaurant from the owners of Superior Seafood. Two years ago, Jess and Erin decided to come back home to New Orleans.

2. The opening menu at Lula includes spicy garlic shrimp ($14), smoked pompano and avocado dip ($10) and a braised pork roast with oyster mushrooms and smashed potatoes ($20). The menu will expand after Mardi Gras. (See a PDF of the full opening menu).

3. The still at the back of Lula turns out vodka, rum and gin. The vodka and rum are distilled from Louisiana molasses. The gin, a lighter, American style, uses the vodka as the base and adds five botanicals: juniper, coriander, orange peels, lemon peels and, for an earthy note, angelica. The botanicals are displayed on the wall in glass apothecary jars.

4. Lula is allowed to sell full bottles of its spirits, but they can only be sold at the restaurant. Eventually they plan to add cordials, aged rum and perhaps even an agricole-style rum, which is made with sugar cane. The house cocktails, including three on tap, use Lula's own spirits. But the restaurant can also sell beer, wine and spirits made off-site.

5. Caffrey, a practicing ER doctor, is the distiller. He learned to distill while living in New Zealand, where home distilling is legal. He started as a home brewer, but switched to distilling when a wheat allergy forced him to stop drinking beer.

The restaurant is open Sunday through Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m and Thursday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.